


Mouse Droids and How To Fix Them – A Quick And Easy Guide [Livestream]

by loosingletters



Series: The Background Noise of Defiance [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Fluff and Humor, Gen, Humor, One Shot, Sibling Bonding, Social Media, Wordcount: 1.000-5.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:14:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24441175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loosingletters/pseuds/loosingletters
Summary: As the future Queen of Alderaan, Leia is under a lot of pressure and stress. So what if she stays up late to watch a farmboy mechanic fix a droid?“That’s it,” he said and helped up the repaired Mouse droid. “A Quick And Easy Guide to Mouse Droids. Now, the only thing left is repainting and naming it. Same rules as always, highest donator gets to choose the color and the name.”Leia shouldn’t waste her allowance on this, but Leia had also had a terrible day and wanted to name that Mouse Droid.Alternatively: Luke runs a Space Youtube Account and Leia watches his videos.
Relationships: Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker
Series: The Background Noise of Defiance [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1765165
Comments: 64
Kudos: 2053
Collections: Outsider POV and Social Media Sagas





	Mouse Droids and How To Fix Them – A Quick And Easy Guide [Livestream]

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Коротко и просто о дроидах-мышах и их ремонте [Прямой эфир]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27838327) by [Sangrill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sangrill/pseuds/Sangrill)



> This is the prequel to my TIE-Fighter fanfic. I've accepted defeat and decided to make this whole thing a series. Right now I'm working on Luke, Obi-Wan and Vaderkin's galactic road trip, but this takes place two years before that!  
> Have fun!

Leia was a well-composed and well-behaved serene princess right up until the doors of her rooms closed behind her. The moment she was out of sight, she kicked off her shoes with such a force that they soared half across the room and crashed against her wardrobe with a loud crack. She took the pins keeping her braids in place out of her hair and threw them onto the dresser. Then as graceless as a regular fifteen-year-old girl, Leia dropped onto her bed and screamed into her pillow.

Today had been _terrible_.

Leia hated all the pointless festivities that only ever served to make everyone there feel important and powerful but did absolutely nothing for the people they were supposed to govern. She couldn’t understand how her parents managed it. They were good and selfless people, always calm and serene even when the newest governor was basically spitting one insult after the other at them. Leia always wanted to shout back, it was her first instinct. Idiots who couldn’t be bothered to contribute anything productive or kind, should shut up and stop hindering others from doing their job. Leia had kept her mouth shut of course. She had smiled pleasantly as her mother had taught her and acted as expected from her.

But that didn’t mean that she hadn’t wanted to strip the gloves off her hands and show him how much of a bloodthirsty royal she really was. She shouldn’t have desired it, but it annoyed her so much when others purposefully misunderstood her. It had been a year since she picked her coronation color. When would people finally stop commenting on it?

Yes! Princess Leia Organa had chosen white! She’d forgone five-hundred-years of tradition and picked the color of the snow on Alderaan’s mountains, of ice so cold it burned, of the sheets upon which they wrote the names of their dead.

Leia wore the color of war, mourning and remembrance and she wore it well.

How could she not when the Empire was murdering innocents, subjugating whole worlds and waging an unjust war? Picking green or blue would be an insult upon the suffering she had been forced to witness. She didn’t want to be remembered as another impassive royal, bowing to the whims of the Empire. Leia hadn’t been meant to live in a tyrannizing Empire in which she had to watch her every word and step. She wanted to speak her mind and missed the Republic she never got to experience.

Her parents, while displeased she out herself in such danger, had understood it. Most Alderaanians understood it and supported her, but not that stupid new governor. Instead, he went on and on about her image and character flaws – and worse! Talked about _marriage_.

Leia was already dead set on staying unmarried. Her parents had been lucky. Despite their marriage being arranged, they’d loved each other. Or maybe they had been in love first and the political advantage of the marriage was just a bonus. Leia didn’t entirely know, but she knew to one hundred percent that all her potential Alderaani suitors sucked. They were arrogant and petty or worse, both of that but way older than her as well. She could marry somebody from a different planet, but the Old Houses would frown upon that and then she’d have to deal with more in-fighting and risk losing control of Alderaan’s society and give the Empire even more access to her planet. It was bad enough as it was.

Groaning, Leia rolled onto her back and got up from her bed again. She’d hate herself in the morning if she didn’t dress out of the fine robes completely. She fetched herself her sleeping clothes and washed the make-up off her face. It felt like taking off uncomfortable armor and she was more than glad to get rid of it. Leia didn’t mind dressing up. As a child, she had loved trying on her parents’ much too large clothes and she still loved picking out dresses together with her mother, but sometimes she wished it all wouldn’t take so much energy.

Redressed, Leia returned to her bed, ready to pretend to fall asleep when she knew that she wouldn’t be able to close her eyes now. Her mind was too unfocused, her thoughts all jumbled up. She laid still and waited until another moment had passed before reaching for her bed stand and pulling out her secret private comm.

Leia had three of them. One for official business, one was the officially private secret comm – the one every important person in the galaxy was supposed to have and hide – and then there was her own, which she used to stay up-to-date with activities unbefitting on an Imperial princess.

She checked the holonet, skimming through articles that made her blood boil and delightfully bright art that called for resistance. She was pleased to notice that more and more Alderaani artists were choosing lighter colors in their barely legal paintings and downright joyful when she saw an account post images of white flags. Those posts would probably be taken down once the meaning behind them spread a little more, but Leia was proud nonetheless. She had caused this, this was her contribution to the Rebellion.

In a better mood already, Leia went through her notifications. She had a few replies to articles she had written and- oh.

> _[Notification: Scrap Hunting has started a livestream – 1 Min ago]_

Smiling widely, Leia clicked on the link connecting her to the video. The livestream had indeed only started recently, and not even properly. Leia had missed the last one sadly because she’d been in the Core, too far away for Scrap Hunting’s terrible holonet connection to reach. Alderaan was just close enough to Tatooine for Leia to watch them.

She couldn’t quite recall how she had stumbled upon the channel. She had just been clicking through some random videos one day and there it had been. Leia wasn’t all that knowledgeable about ships – her parents had kept a keen eye on her since the Speeder accident she’d had when she was ten – and didn’t really have much access to the hangers either. Droids, on the other hand, Leia knew plenty about. They were everywhere and nobody wanted to live without them, which made them the perfect spies with the right adjustments. Leia knew how to wipe a droid’s memory so clean, it was shinier than any crystal and how to hide protocols upon protocols in their storage. Her favorite droids were C-3PO and the R2D2 unite serving on the Tantive IV. Artoo especially had a lot of personality. Leia needed to sort out her Binary so she could catch all the colorful curses the astromech liked to inflict on people.

The two boys running Scrap Hunting – well, only really Luke actually – were sympathetic. They didn’t talk about droids like they were simple tools and they were proficient in fixing them up. Therefore Leia was very pleased to see that the title of the livestream was _Mouse Droids and How To Fix Them – A Quick And Easy Guide._ This would be fun, the right kind of distracting noise she needed after such a long day.

X

“Alright, we’re all set up now,” Luke said. “Hello everybody! I’m Luke and welcome to another episode of Scrap Hunting!”

He waved at the recorder and then picked up a small back droid from his table. “This is what today’s livestream will be about! An MSE-series droid! A lot of you guys said you’d like more livestreams and the weather’s been pretty good recently and I fixed the signals so I hope this works out just fine.”

Luke smiled and reached for the first tool lying in front of him. “I decided that fixing up this little guy here should be fine for a shorter video. I don’t have to think so much about what I’m doing and can talk at the same time.”

He began taking off the outer casing of the droid and carefully set it aside. “I know, I know, I’m always talking, but nobody complains about it.” Luke stopped spinning his wrench for a moment to think. “Okay, alright, maybe my uncle complains about it sometimes but that’s what he gets for making me check all the vaporators on my own. Anyway, I talk a lot and so does this chat. Lots of people joining in here! Hi!”

Luke looked through the chat, returned greetings and explained how he had gotten the droid as payment for helping out in a repair shop.

“And I know the owner thought he was just giving me so boring little plaything, but do you know how versatile these MSE droids are?”

X

Leia definitely knew how useful they could be. She grinned when Luke comically shook his head when people began sending in question marks and began belittling the tiny Mouse droids. They made excellent spies, infiltrators and guides. Underestimating them just because they were cute was fatal. Leia was happy when Luke reacted as outraged as she was and began elaborating on what the droids could be used for.

X

“And like, I get sending the droids back when they trigger your instincts, I wouldn’t keep around a droid that reminds me of a womp rat or a krayt dragon.” Luke paused, the half-open mouse droid lying on his lap, and apparently considered his suggestions.

“Okay, maybe I would actually want them. Could you imagine a droid krayt dragon? _So cool_.”

Luke reached for the nearest datapad and took a few notes, then put it next to him on the table and returned to working on the MSE.

“But yeah, point being: Why did the Aar’aa sell them to the Empire so cheaply? Add some extra software and boom, you can sell them for twice the price. Then you’d even make a bonus. Oh, well, I suppose the Empire at least made a good deal there.”

The MSE droid laid bare now and Luke could easily access its memory. He took his datapad once more and connected it to the droid. After a few seconds, he had access to its memory and immediately frowned.

“Or it did not. What _is_ this programming? I researched what I could find before, downloaded some protocols-“ Luke looked away from his datapad to point down, “-links in the description as always. But just- honestly. Who wrote this protocol?”

He gently knocked his head against the droid’s frame. “I’m so sorry, don’t worry, I’ll speed up your processors.”

X

The next hour, Leia spent listening to Luke ramble on about what changes he made and why. Once or twice she even threw her own suggestions in the chat and watched contently as Luke picked up on them and began to work with them. She wished she didn’t have so many duties and could spend her days doing things she actually wanted, take a more active role in the rebellion. But she supposed that as long as she could escape annoying politicians for a while, she’d be fine.

Leia glanced at her chrono. While it appeared to be midday still on Tatooine, it was already early morning for her. She should head to sleep soon.

Thankfully, the livestream was also wrapping up. Luke had reassembled the droid and screwed the last bolt down.

“And done!” Luke said and helped up the repaired Mouse droid. “A Quick And Easy Guide to Mouse Droids. Now, the only thing left is repainting and naming it. Same rules as always, highest donator gets to choose the color and the name.”

Leia watched as a lot of people began donating. Some just threw in five credits, just to support the channel. She’d done so before as well. It was only right to help somebody else and give him a thanks after cheering her up. Leia typed the first one, then stopped.

She was tired, had been for at least thirty minutes now, but her mind was finally calm as well. She was still and upset, but not so that she wouldn’t be able to sleep.

Leia shouldn’t waste her allowance on this, but Leia had also had a terrible horrible no-good day and wanted to name that Mouse Droid.

X

“And that was it!” Luke announced. “Many thanks for all your donations. I’ll keep you posted on what my next project will be. Hopefully something a little more interesting than this little buddy here. Now let’s see… The highest donation is one- one thousand credits from @rebelroyal!?”

Luke’s voice was awfully high-pitched, shock visible all over his face. “Is this real- oh gosh. Thank you so, so much! I’m not sure- Many thanks for supporting this channel! You may name any future Mouse Droids I come across, oh Force. Right. Uhm. What is your suggestion?”

Leia eyes her discarded white dress on the floor and chose.

X

_History’s eyes on you @rebelroyal_

> Paint it white and name it Emmy! Many thanks for all the lovely content you provide.

Little Emmy, it turned out, look much better in white than it did in the awful black so representative for the Empire.

X

> _[Notification:_ _Twin Suns @skyseekerpilot_ _has mentioned you in a new post]_

_Twin Suns @skyseekerpilot_

> I have adopted 4 more mouse droids to keep our ship clean!

_Twin Suns @skyseekerpilot_

> _[Foto: Five Mouse Droids standing in front of Luke, who was sitting on the ground, smiling cheerfully. The droid in the middle was Emmy. It was a little banged up and had a couple more scratches. On its right were an orange and a blue droid, freshly painted from the looks of it. On Emmy’s left were two black ones]_

> _@rebelroyal_ The orange and blue ones have been painted and named already, care to do the honors for the other two?

X

Leia smiled fondly at the picture and began to type.

_History’s eyes on you @rebelroyal_

> How about yellow and green? Benny and Penny so it rhymes?

_Twin Suns @skyseekerpilot_

> Done :D

> _[Foto: The two previously black mouse droids have been painted as well and are furiously cleaning the floor of a ship]_

**Author's Note:**

> And Leia's generous donation (she's a princess, she can afford this) goes into buying the TIE years later.  
> Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed this and will like the rest of the series!


End file.
